we fade like microfilm in exposure from the sun (aaron, kate/sun, kate/jack) pg
title: we fade like microfilm in exposure from the sun
fandom: lost
character(s)/pairing(s): aaron, kate, jack || kate/sun, jack/kate
rating: pg
word count: 1437
prompt: 'every rose has its thorn' for 
10_cliche_fics
spoilers: s4
summary: au: he was used to people exclaiming how much he looked like his mother, then watching with growing amusement as they furrowed their brows and tried to figure out why he was laughing to himself.
He glanced up from the Biology textbook in his lap at the sound of the telephone ring. The yellow pencil teetered between his middle and index fingers like a rickety, wooden see-saw as he wondered whether he should answer it. He eyed the gametes warily, then the plastic curve of the receiver, then the chromosomes again.
Kate answered from the kitchen, silencing the shrill ringer and replacing it with the muffled tones of her voice.
Don’t eavesdrop, don’t eavesdrop, don’t eaves drop, he recited to himself, his brain a stark board of repeated lines in chalky white, as his conscience played the part of a stern teacher with hawk eyes and a pointer like a whip. But, alas. He was too curious for his own good. He crept into the hall anyway, taking care to avoid the floorboards he knew that squeaked.
He was used to tip-toeing around his family, like soft fingers on bruised skin. When he was small he didn’t know why, just that it was vitally important. But then he learned the answers behind all his questions, and some of the ones he never knew to ask. That’s when he started being careful for his own good too.
He was used to people exclaiming how much he looked like his mother, then watching with growing amusement as they furrowed their brows and tried to figure out why he was laughing to himself.
“People tell him that a lot,” Kate would explain, her mouth apologetic and hard but her eyes sad.
He was fourteen then, and the news that his mother wasn’t really his mother, but a substitute for a blonde woman he never met that didn’t care enough to stick around was still reverberating in his ears.
Eventually the resentment he felt faded, leaving just the dull ache of abandonment.
But his family’s skeletons were more than just fibbed origin stories.
“… I’m sorry, Sun, but I can’t make it this weekend. You know his schedule, I can’t rely on him to have the time off to watch Aaron.” She paused, listening to the other end. “No, his plans fell through, there’s no one to watch him and I can’t leave him alone for a whole weekend.”
Huh. So that’s why Kate had been miffed that the camping trip got canceled.
Aaron had always known, on some level or another, that the two women were more than just friends. He wasn’t stupid, even as a child, and they weren’t exactly geniuses at hiding it. Uncle Jack never seemed to care, or at least it never showed. Of course maybe he just didn’t want to see it.
He tried to imagine the other side of the conversation; the smooth tones of the Asian woman’s voice ruffled by disappointment, maybe the tinkling of her daughter’s laugh in the background as she tried to determine the same thing from the other end. Ji Yeon was always better at taking such things in stride than he was.
He could remember watching her on the phone when he was young, peering in through the living room over his tonka trucks or tugging on her pant legs when he got bored. He would watch as she wrapped the kink of the phone cord around her finger, again and again and again, like a boa constrictor winding its way around her knuckles, trying to choke the life out of her fingernail. The top part of her finger would pale, and Kate would unwind the plastic loops subconsciously in response. She was beautiful then, all those years ago, and still was. But she had been his mother then, and she had glowed with the soft radiance of the only person who would ever truly love him unconditionally, the kind of love you could only be born into. That had faded, if nothing else had.
“Look, Sun, I’m sorry, we’ll just have to reschedule. You know how crazy my life is right now. Aaron just started at a new school, we still haven’t finished unpacking; the house is a mess. This just… it isn’t a good time, that’s all.” She paused again, “I know, I want to see you too,” she giggled, “Nothing fancy, just some jeans and a T-shirt.”
Her pale face colored and maybe someday Aaron would be content with the fact that this woman, this woman he called his mother throughout most of his childhood, had found someplace to draw happiness from. However unconventional.
Kate whispered soft goodbyes into the receiver, and pressed the phone into the hook, letting her hand linger for a moment. She took a deep breath, and he was surprised to hear that it stuttered as she released it.
Her eyes met his across the kitchen and she didn’t seem surprised to see him there; he wondered how long she knew he was listening. Her face was blank.
“Jack should be home in a few minutes with dinner. Why don’t you go set the table.” It wasn’t a question.
He nodded, bowing his head in some adaptation of reverence as she passed by him. Aaron followed the sounds of the news through the living room and then into the dining room, grabbing a small fistful of silverware already resting on the table cloth and laying the silver fork down gently in its rightful place. The knife followed, slow as a sloth, then the spoon. His hands were on autopilot. He sighed, finally, raising his eyes from where his finger traced the blade of the butter knife to the mantle, blinking with photographs.
Birthdays, weddings, vacations… his gaze rested on one of the three of them at Disneyworld; it was both his and Kate’s first time. Mickey Mouse grinned plastically, his huge head and disc ears nestled between Jack and Kate’s grinning, flushed faces, Aaron’s own younger form held up to the camera by Jack. They all looked so… happy. Happy in the kind of way that didn’t take any effort. It hurt to see them back then, faces alight with happiness and love knowing that, however small, he played his own part in what took them from there to here. That he tore his own miniature path of destruction through their lives. That there was no way he could warn the contented people in the picture what was to come.
He remembered Jack reading to him before he could follow the words himself, and then later when he was so sleepy that the letters swam together. Before he knew that the man was his uncle. Back when he was just the nice man that he wanted to call daddy. It’s funny that he felt more connected to him before he found out that they were blood related.
Keys jingled in the lock; seconds later the door banged open, then shut. Jack rounded the corner with two bags of Chinese takeout, settling them down on the counter with an exaggerated huff, followed by his briefcase. His shoulders were tense, as if bowing under the weight of some invisible pressure. He looked tired. Always had.
“Hey slugger,” Jack smiles tentatively at him, having turned around and rested against the counter. His rubbed the back of his neck with his palm, as if reaffirming that his head was still connected to the rest of his body. Stress habit, left over from being the only doctor on an island of danger traps.
Aaron nodded instead of responding, offering up his own careful smile. Things between the two of them, between them all, had been tense for the past few years, since that crazy paraplegic bald guy showed up and spilled the family beans. But they all pretended not to notice, and Aaron thought that probably made it worse.
He could hear the water running in the bathroom down the hall, knew it was probably just Kate’s way of masking the sound of her sobs. And Jack knew it too. He could see it in the tremble of his hands as he reached for the plates and again, harder, when he made a grab for the chopsticks, after a choked cry managed to escape the wet slopping against the shower tiles. In the way he eyed the phone like he could see the past, the last conversation that it provided a conduit for, both sides this time, and like he could see the future when he made himself busy as the water slowed to a trickle and the bathroom door opened.
He could recall the days when Jack would tell him that everything would be okay, and any of them actually believed him.
So long ago, the memories begin to fade.